


We’ve come too far (to give up who we are)

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they were seas, he’d be the dead one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We’ve come too far (to give up who we are)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Miss len-yan! My best(est) big bro! <3 Title is a lyric from Daughter’s “Get Lucky” cover of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. That version also plays in Jason’s apartment.

If they were seas, he’d be the dead one.

If they were sand he’d be the wreck of bones, drying to dusts, if no man is an island, he’s prisoners, bars and leather creaking through his teeth, he doesn’t qualify.

He’s never thought of attraction if dizzy, rushed dreams don’t count, if warm, soft perfume of girls in courageous skirts and with strong smiles won’t meet the quota and it’s never been something to strive for after Ethiopia, after he’s been there for _this, this this_ , and Tim is a person he: would have protected (little brothers) before, has wanted to shred to something that won’t be _Robin_ anymore, after, and now —

now there’s a thousand of things to think when he’s in Gotham and they are after this same gang and if he dies it’s alright, if he bleeds out it’s fucking peachy but that’s still _Robin_ , dark red hollow _stupid prick taking all my uniforms—_

“If you have to insult me, at least say it to my face.”

(speak of the Robin and he chirps.)

“My window isn’t your fucking shortcut.”

“No, it’s your _ashtray_ ,” Tim says, slips past the cigarette stubs, traces of ash stuck to his thumbs and look: he’s not even in his uniform. There’s no drag of cape, no print of wires, just his old domino and the shorter, messier haircut, that suits him better now that he’s 19, grew three inches and the morning sky shifted to match his shoulders, or perhaps Jason is only getting used to the idea of looking at Tim and _seeing_ , seeing: not a wrong cut-out, not _not me_ , not _imitation_ but a system of cells, a separate entity (that’s _nothing_ like the girls he’s liked when _he_ was shorter), instead, seeing a boy that’s been through worlds of memories of his own but — it’s still nothing.

There’s nothing to want. Not in this reality. Not in this world.

(Expect peace to rest in.)

“If you need to borrow sugar, you’ve picked the wrong neighbor,” Jason answers, leaning over the screen of his phone, he’s painted in neons, pale blue and irritation, red smears and loneliness.

 “You’re burning your food,” Tim says, pads to the kitchen counter and leans over the pot, there’s grey smoke and the scent is metallic, like when his bike’s been running for hours or Jason has cases of bullets adorning his feet like an empty crown (hollow shells like he’s crafting a sea from concrete and fire —) and yeah — it’s not food at all.

“It’s not _burning_ , it’s getting _cleaned_. What do you want? I told you, don’t have sugar. Or flour,” Jason says and changes scenery, the screen of his face flickers to softer tones.

“Do I look like I’m baking a cake?” Tim gestures and looking up — no, he does not. There’s a dark stain on his bicep that curls like a smirk and he’s carrying a crumpled bag, his domino crooked in the tiniest of angles, it speaks of hurry.

“You look like you were _dissecting_ something. Which might account to the same thing—”

“My apartment’s water broke.”

“Gonna have babies?” Jason looks over at Tim properly, catches a fraction of him, the one that’s all elbows and lines that end all the way on Jason’s floor and the language of Tim’s body says he’s not appreciating the joke, not the tired, unwashed, sleepy majority of his consciousness anyway and — _good_. Jason doesn’t appreciate the nervous, giddy flutter in his fingers, muscles, the whole of his chest either, fuck.

“So funny I might crack a rib,” Tim retorts and then he’s setting the bag down with a soft rumble, the contents remaining unknown and Jason wonders how that looked from the heavy lidded, watchful streets — a mismatched, underdressed hero, a confused thief, climbing from the slippery roof down, a runaway that flies rather than runs. (All of those match him right now.)

“Well crack it somewhere that’s not my place.”

(But none of them match Jason.)

“ _All_ I need is your couch and shower.”

“You hate my couch.”

“I have no personal feelings for your couch. Honest.”

“You can’t fix a broken tap?” Jason turns away from the phone, leans against the counter and wonders if Tim feels something too, if something expands thorough his veins the same way: it can’t be just Jason, wishing he could step through the damp, hungry shower, directly to Tim’s bare, foreign body, wishing he could do _something_ , sexual or sweet; it doesn’t matter.

(He only wants to be close, to something, someone, this person in particular —)

“The pipes are sliced through,” Tim answers and raising an eyebrow, Jason takes Tim’s bag and while the first, foremost intention of his palms was to throw it straight out the window, his feet carry him to the living room, through the narrow doorway which paint is chipped and raining in solitary storms, he brushes against Tim in the slightest ways, bumps into his shoulder and then dynamite, hot and heavy, runs out, somewhere. (Somewhere inside of him, somewhere he won’t and can’t reach. _Ridiculous_ , he thinks. There’s nothing that can disappear anymore, anyway. Nothing to rust away from his bones. That’s all _there_ , away, where all of him should be, too.)

That might be the trouble. He’s essentially a living corpse.

(And Tim was never anything but alive.)

“Did Damian visit?” he asks, puts the bag down and Tim is looking, curiously, intently, _nervous_ and it burns the back of Jason’s neck, he wonders if you can get blisters, degrees of burns from this. The bag is heavy and for Jason that’s as comforting as it scares him, it cooperates with the extent of time Tim wants — _needs_ — to occupy his couch.

(What a blast.)

“No, that’s what happened to _your_ apartment, remember?” Tim stretches and starts undoing his belt, Jason returns to the kitchen, they evade each other like planets, stars that know collision would be a disaster, would probably a) devour them both or b) destroy half of the town and if Jason doesn’t want to admit he might be stuck to this kid, Tim wants to recognize it even less, is as stubborn as they get — as stubborn as they probably never got before — dumb about things that feel like dates or being crammed together, elbows scoring bruises in the one place that had no security and they had to lay low, like getting into each other’s way when their hearing got shot to hell and the whole place was breaking apart or like rushing through town over hundred miles an hour, back to back, the tires hardly making a sound while Jason’s guns were making a whole lot more of it and —

Jason can’t think of a reason they started this team up.

(He can’t think of a reason to stop it, either.)

He brushes his teeth as Tim showers and Tim only says: “If the water turns cold I’m going to kick you.” and Jason says “If you kick _me_ I’m kicking _you_ out.” and that’s it for the shower: no intimacy, no dripping, wet hair clinging to his shirt; he isn’t sure what he’s longing for.

Tim curls on the couch and sleeps in seconds, Jason gets a good smoke and ponders if this feels better or worse — since — they shifted. Or maybe the world did, maybe Jason’s in a weird, feverish dream, maybe Tim’s shooting up drugs and thinks this, here, like this is right, maybe they are all fake or it’s horrifyingly real, it’s a thing between them that’s sticky and awkward and feels like a stain of a favourite kind, like an update they’re too lazy, preoccupied, wary to install.

He smokes another, calls it a night and wakes up to Tim behind the counter, a soft hum in the radio he didn’t bother to fix since he moved in, the afternoon splattering wildly across the inside of his apartment, it resembles a crime scene.

(No victims present, yet.)

There might be, in seconds, or sooner, or never — Tim stole his shirt and wears it wrong, his jeans are worn to threads slipping loose and Jason sees the scar: it churns his stomach. He remembers how burns scar, how they smell, what they heal into and the tank top isn’t hiding even a bit of it, it creeps up Tim’s spine and tangles in his hair, it won’t dissipate.

(It will memorize his skin.)

“Cooking me breakfast won’t get you on my good side,” Jason says and gets a glass of water, swallows the shudder, pretends he doesn’t see Tim curled in pain, doesn’t see a crowbar splitting his back.

“Your couch is incredibly lumpy.” is Tim’s answer and he rolls his shoulders, as if to signal it’s been fucking with his spine and yeah, Jason knows but so does _Tim_ , it’s not like he hasn’t spent _hours_ on it when Jason was sewing his leg up months ago and he’d bled in dark rivers that soaked a whole towel into a soggy mess, it’s not like Tim hasn’t been passed out on it for the next two days, complaining his back hurts more than his thigh. It’s not like those time don’t exist.

“Yeah, yeah heard it a million times.” Jason presses against the window, Tim moves the pan away and the sizzle dies down, he divides everything by two and then takes a cup of coffee (stolen, too) and says: “It’s done.”, gulps down half of his cup and they eat with the radio stringing ideas through their heads, Tim fishing out an old newspaper and Jason longing for a cigarette, again; it’s like it’s a carefully crafted play and they are reciting lines, waiting for the acts to pass.

Then Tim kicks his shin, on accident, looks up, quickly and says a quiet “sorry”, right after he stops eating and Jason’s plate is empty, too, and nothing holds them at the table anymore so Tim stands up for a refill and Jason opens the window to smoke, Tim squeezing next to him into the frame with a cup in his palms a minute later and if Jason wouldn’t want this he’d be pissed off, if Tim’s hip digging into his stomach wasn’t somehow making his thoughts turn to a buzz, he’d probably move away, or you know, punch this punk, hard.

But he stays and _they_ stay and the radio whispers now, hushed tones of _we’re up all night to the sun, we’re up all night to get some, we’re up all night for good fun, we’re up all night to get lucky_ falling into the street from behind their backs and Jason wonders if he’s been empty this whole time, if he’s been too full or somewhere in between and then he catches Tim looking, sees him hesitate and now that he has Tim’s attention he doesn’t let go, holds it, understands.

(Tim noticed it, too.)

He breathes in, thick smoke and thin air, exhales, pretends this isn’t anything unordinary, anything special. Pretends he wasn’t dead and Tim isn’t deadly, pretends they are two kids, drinking beer behind their parents’ back, smoking to have something to do, to have something to hide.

(And then he breaks the act.)

“When will you kiss me?” he asks and Tim reacts right away, suddenly cornered, suddenly readable, he leans away, their position making him stumble and he answers, says: “What? I’m not —” rushed and he wants to be a hero a thief a runaway again and Jason thinks they’re not that noble, they’re not those people and honestly: they’re not much more than those kids, really.

So he catches Tim’s bicep, drops his cigarette into Tim’s coffee and as Tim splutters with “ _I was drinking that!_ ” he says “ _Dumbass_.” and they both shut up, the kiss brief, shallow, their lips hardly brushing but they can’t pull away now, their mouths apart but they manage to touch as they wait and jitter and fucking _tremble_ , with friction more than fright and it takes a second for Tim to press into Jason fully again, it takes a small, private eternity.

It gets better when Jason cups Tim’s face and the kiss gets real, as Tim fists his hair and there’s a hint of everything they are, violent, stitched up in many, strange ways and missing in pieces, it’s truer when Tim steers them closer to the sink, to the depths of Jason’s warm apartment.

(It’s not like Oracle doesn’t know everything by now, anyway.)


End file.
